Past Relations
by Emme2589
Summary: When Willow finds Fletcher's old photo albums, she gets to learn more about her cousin's past.


"Wall-E! Eve! Willow!" Fletcher beamed in the doorway, "So nice to see you!"

"It's good to see you too, Fletcher." EVE lifted the box covered in gift wrap the family had carried there, "Like we could miss your second child's baby shower!"

"Yeah yeah, that." Fletcher tried to act nonchalant, but it was obvious that his excitement could barely let him hold still, "Come in! Come in! Gifts go over there, watch your step!"

Willow hadn't seen him so happy since...well, since Toby was born. And now they were having another one, and another party. Willow was happy for him, of course she was, but it felt kind of tiring after awhile, since the rest of her family seemed to be settling down with bigger families when that was the last thing she wanted to do. After all, she'd only just met V-GR about a month ago.

Fletcher's wife, Asteri, was sitting on the couch inside, her belly large and round from almost a year of pregnancy. She seemed exhausted, but she also radiated excitement, just like her husband.

"Aya!" EVE gave her sister a quick hug, "Congratulations on your second grandchild!"

"Isn't it great!?" Aya laughed.

"Maybe one of these days I'll get my _first_ grandchild." EVE shot a pointed look at Willow.

 _"Mooooooom!"_

"I'm only joking!" she put both arms in the air in surrender.

"Nos was grumpy, but I managed to drag his ass here before too many guests arrived. I think the humans are further in..."

Willow let her mind drift around all the colorful decorations. Some of the humans were blowing bubbles or eating from tiny dessert plates while the robots just caught up on things happening in their respective lives. Before she'd realized it, she'd stumbled upon a door decorated with fake algae and paper fish. It was slightly ajar.

She couldn't help but begin to grow curious. She pushed the door open more to find not only plenty of botanical equipment, but also microscopes, textbooks, stained lab coats, a giant fish tank in one corner of the room, and small fingerprint scanners. There was another door leading to a smaller room with a white tiled floor, blueprints for new battery prototypes along the desk near the light switch, and one queen-sized bed in another corner decorated with constellation comforters and purple pillows. No mistake; This was Fletcher's room, and judging from the rust on the door hinges, it had been for a long time.

Willow knew she really shouldn't be snooping, but she couldn't help but get even more curious. The room seemed vaguely familiar, so she knew she had to have been here before, but it had been _ages_ since she and Fletcher had played together, and that factor made her need to investigate even stronger. Finally, she pushed the door open until it hit a neglected laundry basket full of colorful sweaters and more soiled lab coats.

The room itself didn't have a lot of surprising things in it. After all, Willow knew that Fletcher was a botanist with an emphasis on clean renewable energy. Because of that, Nos, Two, himself, Asteri, Toby, and Quinn (the house AI) ran entirely on recycled energy, and it was very cost-effective too. She also knew that Fletcher liked to try a lot of dangerous scientific experiments using explosive and highly radioactive materials, though he took a lot more precautions than he used to on that front. That would explain the soiled lab coats in particular. He probably had so many because he was certain they'd be destroyed and had become pleasantly surprised (though plenty had been ruined beyond repair, just not as many as expected).

What really interested Willow were the photo albums. In between the tall narrow windows across the bathroom, there was a shelf full of thick scrapbooks. Fletcher had always struck her as a sentimental person who wanted to remember everything, so it didn't surprise her that he documented everything in these photo albums. The covers were made of high-quality faux leather, with pages made out of bamboo wood. They were full of stickers, scribbled notes, and of course, photos.

The first book on the shelf was simply titled, "Baby book", and it was full of mementos from Fletcher's early childhood. Willow had been born a few years after Fletcher, so it was interesting seeing him so young. He was the adventurous type in his youth, always climbing into cabinets and knocking shelves over, and it got even worse once he'd learned how to fly. Plenty of the pictures had Willow doubling over with laughter thinking, _How did he even_ get _up there!?_

The second book was labelled, "Fletcher: Aged 5-13" which documented his life through elementary and middle school. Willow skimmed through this one faster, since she'd been there during all that time so none of it was surprising to her. The only notable thing was the time Fletcher had gotten third place in the science fair for his self-regenerating potato battery. Willow still remembered that. He couldn't stop talking about it for weeks afterwords.

The third book was the second to last on the shelf, and it was the most interesting to her. Fletcher in high school. Willow hardly knew _anything_ about Fletcher's high school years, since after middle school, Willow was sent to a robotic learning facility while Fletcher went to a more traditional human high school. It was the time they'd broken off their close-knit friendship and gone their separate ways, so this was _immensely_ intriguing to her.

Willow thumbed through the book slowly, soaking up every detail. One of the highlights was Fletcher going through puberty. He didn't get acne or grow facial hair like his human friends, but he did grow obscenely tall really fast, and apparently his voice cracks were so bad that people would have to ask him to repeat what he'd said because it made his words unrecognizable. Fletcher was also oddly photo-phobic in this book, because he looked like he was scowling in all these pictures. This was also when both his fangs grew long enough that they were both always visible, his face lost its roundness, his chest widened, his arms grew thicker, and the tapering point that would become legs in the future was more narrow and slender in later pictures.

This was one thing Willow liked about being stagnant in her growth; She never had to deal with puberty. She could only imagine what that would be like for Toby, or the new baby, when they grew older.

But one picture about a third of the way through the book made Willow pause and stare.

This was the first photo with Darwin in it, Fletcher's best friend, but you'd never guess that from this particular photo. In it, Darwin had finally gotten Fletcher to smile in front of the camera by planting a spark on his cheek. In pink marker, a heart was drawn next to the photo with "Darwin and Fletcher" written inside, and an arrow through the outside of the outline. The next few pages were full of nothing but the same thing; Holding hands or falling asleep in each other's laps or kisses on the lips or arms over shoulders. Willow smiled. They looked so happy.

"Willow!?"

Willow dropped the album, then snatched it back up. Fletcher was standing in the doorway, an aghast expression on his face.

 _Oh no._

Willow tried to put the photo album back where she'd found it, but it was too late. He'd caught her snooping. Fletcher ran to the shelf and snatched up the book, flipping through it hastily.

"D-did you-?" he landed on the last picture, where he and Darwin's kissing silhouettes were seen in front of the sunset, the tiny spark not doing much to illuminate their contended expressions.

"I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean..." Willow tried to blubber an excuse, "I was just...the door was open..."

"No no, Willow. It's fine." Fletcher narrowed his eyes at the picture before shelving the book, "I don't mind you looking through my things, but you should have asked first. I would have been happy to show you."

Willow stared at the carpet, "Sorry..."

Fletcher smiled, "I accept your apology."

"So then...is it true?" Willow couldn't stop the questions, "Did you and Darwin date really each other? Why did you stop? Which one of you broke it off? Does Asteri know?"

"Willow!" Fletcher laughed, stepping backwards to sit on the bed, "One question at a time, please! Yes, me and Darwin first met in high school, early sophomore year, and we really liked each other, so we hit it off pretty much right off the bat. There were other people I could've seen, sure, but there was something special about him. You know?"

Willow jumped up to sit on the bed with him, "So then, why did you break up?" she'd tried to ask that gently, but Fletcher lost his fond smile the second the question was out in the air.

"Because we'd lost that chemistry." Fletcher hiked his foot up on the bed and leaned into it with both hands, "After high school graduation, we realized that we didn't see each other as boyfriends anymore. The romantic air had fizzled away, but we still cared about each other immensely. Before Darwin started his community collage classes, he promised he'd call me whenever he could, hoping to at least salvage what we'd had into a meaningful friendship."

"And it worked?"

 _"Hell yeah_ it worked! Better than we would have hoped!" Fletcher pulled both his legs up, crossing them over the bed sheets, "Ever since then, Darwin has been like a brother to me. We saw other people, got married, found other meaningful relationships and careers, but he's still like, my rock. You know?"

"I think so." Willow didn't relate entirely, since _her_ rock had always been her father, but she still got the gist of it.

Willow had been reintroduced to Fletcher when he was maybe around 50 years old. He'd been so much taller than she remembered, and much more mature as well. He introduced her to his best friend, Darwin, and through all their interactions throughout the rest of the day, it was 100% crystal-clear that they saw each other as no more than brothers. Shoulder bumps and high fives and playful wrestling and things like that.

"Does Asteri know?"

"Right, that was your last question." Fletcher stared fondly into the distance, "She does, actually. We joke about it sometimes."

He paused, but Willow waited, feeling like he had more to say.

"I just..." a squiggly smile spread across his face, "Ugh! I love Darwin, but Asteri is _so perfect!_ I think she knew about my massive crush on her, but she didn't return my feelings for a long time, it made me want to chase after her. She's just so charming and sweet and strong and lethal and I swear she could _kill_ me if she wore the right lipstick, just..." he shivered, hugging himself and swaying slightly, "...and now she's mine...and we have _kids..."_

Willow giggled, tapping her treads together, "So you just knew?"

"Well..." his goofy grin fell, "No...it's more complicated than that. I thought Darwin was my soul mate until the end of our senior year, but looking back on it...it didn't feel quite right. Like we were...I dunno...pushing something that didn't exist, if that makes any sense, and...with Asteri, it felt the same at first, but she had a way of tugging at my heartstrings that Darwin could never do, and even though it's been so many years since we first met, _that_ fire never went away." Fletcher played with his sleeves, "The initial fire dulled, just like it did with Darwin, but a new one ignited that made my heart beat slower every time I saw her. So...I guess what I'm trying to say is that you don't know you have it until you do. Or, something like that anyway."

Willow nodded, "I see..."

"Speaking of Darwin, he should be here any moment with his _own_ wife!" Fletcher jumped right back into _I'm having another kid!_ mode, "Come on! He won't wait forever!"

Willow looked at the third book on the shelf one last time before following her cousin down the hall.

Was she making a mistake getting so close to V-GR? Or was he the right one? How would she know?

"By the way, Fletcher."

"Uh huh?"

"Do you know the baby's gender?"

He turned to her again with the widest smile she'd ever seen;

"Yeah. It's a girl."

000

 **It** ** _started_** **like a LFLD chapter, but I figured it was better as a standalone since it focuses so much on Fletcher as opposed to Willow. Also, I guess this story takes place sometime after** ** _Captains of the Sky_** **and before** ** _The Pale Moon Child._** **Or maybe sometime during Pale Moon Child, idk, my timeline is pretty nebulous as it is, so take that with a grain of salt. Or something. Wow, I'm super frikin literate, aren't I? Maybe even as literate as E. L. James, amiright guys?**

 **K, I'll shut up now. XD**


End file.
